Cub Academy faces growing waitlist, lacks space to expand

In a classroom at Needham Elementary School, children in the Cub Academy preschool program learned letter sounds in creative ways.

During class, they learned about words starting with the letter “P,” playing with a pirate ship, using pipettes to dye cotton balls to look like popcorn and placing letters on a circle to replicate pizza toppings.

Cub Academy currently provides services to 120 children ages three to five, but with few options for parents in the Franklin area, the demand for preschool is greater than ever. While the waitlist had grown to about 30 children each year, in 2022 it jumped to 50 kids, causing Katie Smith, the academy’s director, to close the list for the year.

“Unless we opened up another classroom, we would never get to them,” Smith said. “We didn’t have a waitlist in the beginning and I credit that growth and waitlist to our awesome staff. We made connections and families are returning because they liked us and it worked well for them.”

For Cub Academy, the ability to expand is limited by the priority of public school students to be in classrooms. While Franklin Community School Corporation officials are exploring possible building expansion projects in the future, nothing has been set in stone, and the last time a new school opened in the district was in 2007, when Franklin Community High School first welcomed students in a new building on Cumberland Drive.

Before the 2022-23 school year, leaders at Franklin schools shuffled students to different schools during its redistricting process to prepare for future growth. While the move temporarily freed up space at some schools, including at Needham, which now hosts Cub Academy for the first time, it decreased the amount of space in other buildings, such as at Northwood, which went from four Cub Academy rooms to one. The capacity at Cub Academy hasn’t increased since 2017, when it went from 80 students to 120, according to a Franklin schools presentation.

While there are limitations when it comes to the growth of Cub Academy, there are also advantages to being housed in a school building, said Tonia Littell, a lead teacher for the academy at Needham Elementary School.

“I think word of mouth is letting us grow. Being in a school helps because they can see fourth graders walk in the hallway, they know what lunch is like, they know (Principal Dylan) Purlee, the nurse and counselor,” Littell said. “It’s a huge benefit, as opposed to just being in a building within the city.”

Registration priority each year is given to families who already have children enrolled in the program, and if new families don’t sign up quickly enough, they have to look for other options or hope they luck out with the waitlist, Littell said.

“A lot of times parents will wait until July or August and don’t sign them up, but our registration is in March. They’ll call in June or July and say ‘my son is three now,’ and they don’t think far enough ahead,” she said. “They could be on a waitlist and will start on their third birthday. The earlier you get them in a preschool setting and not just daycare, it’s better education.”

Last year, registration filled up by June 1, so the best way to make sure a child gets into Cub Academy is to enroll them when the window opens for new students March 7, Smith said.

Demand from parents who didn’t sign up in time to get a spot has driven demand at other preschools, such as at Primrose School of Greenwood, which opened Jan. 23. There, 190 children enrolled before the school even opened its doors. The infant and toddler program already has a waitlist of about 20 families, and while the preschool is not quite at capacity, the current infant and toddler program will fill the preschool in the coming years as those children age into the program, said Jessica Schmollinger, franchise owner for the school.

Families have signed up not just from Greenwood, but Perry Township, Martinsville, Mooresville and Shelbyville. Franklin families also represent a large portion of registrants, as Cub Academy’s waitlist and a decreased capacity for Discovery Center in Franklin have increased demand elsewhere, she said.

“We had someone enroll their unborn infant eight months from now,” Schmollinger said. “Unfortunately, if nothing changes, some families will never get off the waitlist unless someone disenrolls.”

For questions on Cub Academy registration, email Director Katie Smith at [email protected]

Registration day for the 2023-24 school year will take place 4:30 to 6 p.m. on March 7 at Northwood Elementary School.